Neurospicy Teaching
How to be neurodivergent and thrive as a teacher
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What Does It Really Mean to Be a Neurospicy Teacher?
The term neurospicy is a joyful way of describing the many ways our brains can work differently: ADHD, autism, dyslexia, dyspraxia, Tourette’s, and other forms of cognitive diversity. It’s a word that celebrates intensity, creativity, and sensitivity, rather than pathologising them. This page is for the teachers who feel that difference in themselves. It’s a space to understand your own wiring, to recognise the power in it, and to learn how to work with your brain instead of against it. Because when neurodivergent educators learn to harness their strengths, they don’t just change their own lives, they change the fabric of education.
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Neurodivergent teachers bring something extraordinary to education.
Our brains are wired for intensity, for curiosity that runs deep, for creativity that refuses to stay in neat lines, for empathy that senses the pulse of a room before a word is spoken. We are the ones who see patterns where others see noise, who chase ideas until they turn into magic, who can connect with a student in the quiet language of authenticity. Yet too often, those same traits are misread as distraction, sensitivity, or chaos. The truth is that the qualities that make teaching hard at times are the same ones that make us unforgettable educators. Our difference isn’t a flaw in the system; it’s the system’s missing ingredient.
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To thrive as a neurospicy teacher is to stop fighting your wiring and start designing around it. It means learning the rhythms of your focus, your energy, and your emotions, and building habits that make them work for you. It’s about knowing that executive function tools aren’t crutches, they’re catalysts; that rest isn’t weakness, it’s regulation; that self-knowledge is professional mastery. When we harness the full architecture of our minds, we don’t just survive the classroom, we transform it. Every time a neurodivergent teacher leans into their natural creativity, sensitivity, or hyperfocus, education evolves a little further toward what it should have been all along: a place where difference is brilliance in motion.
Can Your Neurodivergent Brain Be Your Superpower?
Absolutely, and a strengths-based approach is crucial to showcasing your superpowers. It begins with the belief that what we notice most about ourselves and others should not be what is missing, but what is magnificent. Neurospicy teachers often spend years masking their difficulties, overcompensating for executive function challenges, or internalising the idea that they must become more consistent or organised to be professional. But real growth begins when we stop treating difference as a deficit to correct and start designing environments that amplify what already works. Self-management for a neurodivergent teacher isn’t about forcing productivity through willpower; it’s about understanding how focus, energy, and creativity operate uniquely in your brain, then setting up systems that play to those rhythms.
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The same principle applies to leadership. Line managing a neurospicy teacher well means leading through curiosity, not compliance. It means noticing the sparks, the passion projects, the deep empathy, the capacity to innovate under pressure, and building frameworks that channel them rather than suppress them. A strengths-based manager helps teachers identify their cognitive superpowers and craft strategies around areas of vulnerability. That might mean flexible planning time, clearer communication structures, sensory-friendly workspaces, or coaching-style conversations that focus on autonomy and agency. When schools lead through strength, neurodivergent teachers don’t just cope, they flourish, and the whole community benefits from their creativity, authenticity, and insight.
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Identifying your strengths can be as simple or as structured as you choose. Tools like the CliftonStrengths assessment provide a powerful language for understanding how your talents show up at work in patterns of thinking, relating, and achieving. Appraisal conversations can become spaces for strength spotting rather than deficit fixing, where you and your line manager reflect on what energises you, when you perform at your best, and how those moments can be multiplied. Even a few minutes of self-reflection each week, asking “When did I feel most alive in my teaching?”, can reveal the themes that define your brilliance. However you uncover them, naming your strengths is the first step in learning how to use them with purpose and pride.
What Does Thriving Look Like in Action?
Thriving as a neurospicy teacher means turning self-awareness into rhythm. Once you understand how your brain works and where your strengths lie, thriving becomes the art of designing a working life that honours them. It’s not about silencing your chaos or forcing your focus into someone else’s routine; it’s about matching your environment to your energy. Plan deep work during your most alert hours, use transitions between classes to reset, and let movement, sound, or sensory cues ground your focus. Build rituals that bring comfort and rhythm to your day. Self-management in this sense is less about control and more about choreography, learning the tempo of your brain and letting your practice move with it. That’s where true sustainability begins.
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For leaders, helping neurospicy teachers thrive means building the right conditions for that choreography to unfold. Replace supervision with partnership, feedback with conversation, and rigid systems with flexible structures. Recognise that executive function, sensory load, and emotional energy fluctuate, and design accordingly. Offer clarity without clutter, and autonomy without ambiguity. Ask questions like “What would make this easier for your brain?” or “When are you at your best?” and act on the answers. Celebrate creativity and outcomes, not sameness in method. A thriving teacher feels trusted to use their own strategies and supported when they need structure.
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When both teacher and leader embrace this partnership, thriving stops being an exception and starts becoming culture. Classrooms feel calmer, more creative, and more human. Staffrooms feel safer, warmer, and more honest. The language of “coping” fades, replaced by design, reflection, and collaboration. Thriving sees a profession where difference is not accommodated, but celebrated, and where every teacher has permission to work, lead, and live as the fullest version of themselves.
Coming in 2026
The Neurospicy Teacher
The Book
Get in touch
We’re developing new tools and stories to help neurospicy teachers thrive in the classroom, in leadership, and beyond. If this page resonated with you, or if you’d like to explore how to build a more neuro-inclusive culture in your school, we’d love to hear from you.
Every conversation adds another spark to the movement for a profession where difference truly shines.